Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
I didn’t know what to say to that, either, so again I remained silent.
Not that it would’ve done me any good anyway.
I mean, his hand was over my mouth, and I could still hear Karen squeaking as her butthole hairs were waxed.
“Breathe deeply.”
At first, I wasn’t sure why he would ask me that. I mean, why would he need me to take deep breaths unless…
I started to feel the pull almost without realizing it.
My eyes were growing heavy, and something wasn’t quite right.
But before I could say a word, to protest in any way, my eyes fell closed. And I didn’t wake back up.
• • •
The gentle rocking of water underneath whatever I was lying on woke me.
At first, a smile graced my lips as I thought about what that rocking meant. Being in Cassius’s home, warm and protected.
But as I opened my eyes, the surroundings didn’t match what my brain said they should match.
As I studied the small, enclosed cabin that I was inside, I realized that I wasn’t at Cassius’s place at all. In fact, I was actually on a much smaller boat. One that I didn’t know who it belonged to.
Had I fallen asleep while fishing or something?
But that answer was all but thrust into my face seconds later when Coran came into view. His eyes were manically bouncing around the area, taking in every single thing that caught his attention.
Just as I was about to sit up and force him to toss me over the side—because what the hell else were my options at this point?—the boat came to a stop.
Coran leaned over, tagged the large wood pylon, and he expertly tied a knot with the rope along the anchor hook. Seconds later, he was lifting me in his arms and marching us down the dock toward his house.
That was one good thing that I could see out of it all. At least Cassius would look here first.
Bad news was, he might not be able to find me.
Mostly because the place was flippin’ huge. As in, so large that the moment we started toward the door, I realized that there were four front doors. Two double doors side by side.
Doors that opened with Oberon Kalb staring in horror at his son.
“What did you do?” he asked, sounding baffled and partially sickened.
It was only as Coran marched past Oberon that it happened.
I looked up into the eyes of a ghost.
That’s when I knew that Oberon was just as sick as Coran. If not more so.
“I don’t understand why you can have a plaything and I can’t,” Coran snapped. “At least maybe mine will help with dinner.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten, hoping when I opened them I didn’t actually see what I saw.
But nope. When I opened them, there the ghost was, staring at me with anger and disgust.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
CHAPTER 15
I ran out of coffee this morning. Tequila seemed a fitting replacement. Everyone is so bearable to be around today.
-Text from Cassius to Alice
CASSIUS
I arrived at Alice’s, where we’d agreed we’d be staying the night, to find an empty apartment.
Logically, I knew it was likely that Karen and Alice were just running late at the spa appointment that they’d admitted to both going to.
What kind of spa appointment, I didn’t know, but for the rest of the night, I’d been eager to find out.
In the beginning, I’d been at the houseboat, but something had urged me to leave. Some deep-seated feeling in my gut.
At first, I’d tried to ignore it. Since I was getting regular updates from her phone, I chose to think that meant good things.
It was as I was pushing through her apartment front door that the call came.
I picked it up within seconds and said, “Hello?”
“She’s missing,” Karen said. “I was knocked out, along with the two massage therapists, as well as the ladies that were in the waiting room. We think it was some aerosolized drug, because one second we were all up and talking, me about to head toward the bathroom where Alice said she would be, when I got dizzy and nearly passed out. My eyes grew heavy, and when I next woke, my head was pounding, and she was gone.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Where are you now?”
“On the way to Oberon’s place in a boat I stole from an old fisherman,” she answered immediately.
I dashed down the stairs toward the door that would spit me out on the dock of The Marina. When I got outside, my eyes scanned the area for the fastest fuckin’ boat that I could find, and I grinned when I saw the Coast Guard boat sitting there.
A buddy of mine, Tim, was getting it worked on, and had asked if he thought it would be okay for him to leave it at The Marina since a crew was coming to service it in the morning. I’d asked, and had come back with an ‘of course’ from Silvain.